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Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

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Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#111

Post by pizza234 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #22
pizza234 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This issue is not black and white. It is accepted, within limits, for humans do transformative work, but it's not been yet established which the limits for AIs are, primarily (IMO): 1. whether the work is transformative or not 2. whether the scale of transformation/distribution changes the nature of the work.

Embedding other people's work in a vector space, then sampling from the distribution at a different point in the vector space, is not a central member of the "transformative" category. The justifications for allowing transformative uses do not apply to it.

Critiques like this dismissis AI as a bunch of multiplications, while in reality it is backed by extensive research, implementation, and data preparation. There's an enormous complexity behind, making it difficult to categorize as simply transformative or not.

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#112

Post by wizzwizz4 »

pizza234 wrote: post #111
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embedding other people's work in a vector space, then sampling from the distribution at a different point in the vector space, is not a central member of the "transformative" category. The justifications for allowing transformative uses do not apply to it.

Critiques like this dismissis AI as a bunch of multiplications, while in reality it is backed by extensive research, implementation, and data preparation. There's an enormous complexity behind, making it difficult to categorize as simply transformative or not.

The Pirate Bay is also backed by extensive research, implementation, and data preparation. I'm not dismissising [sic] anything as "a bunch of multiplications" – you'll note I talked about embedding in vector spaces, not matrix multiplication. (I do, in fact, know what I'm talking about: if you want to dismiss [sic] my criticism, please actually engage with it like the other commenters have.)

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#113

Post by sshine »

thankyoufriend wrote: post #104
quxbar wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people will need to stop identifying as 'someone who makes art with enough value to trade it for the decent wage'. Millions of egos destroyed, not a dollar of GDP lost.

So I guess you don't read books/comics, watch TV/Movies/plays, play video games or listen to music? People aren't born skilled artists, that takes time and effort. Being able to prompt GenAI well just makes you a skilled prompter, not a skilled artist. Over time, we will lose a lot of skilled artists and that is something worth thinking more deeply about, instead of giving a callous hot take. Artists are trained to v…

My wife and I went for wall decoration. There’s an art gallery and a poster shop right next to each other. The price difference is a factor 100 for an average art piece.

In the poster shop you can choose between a bunch of classics, or you can upload your own AI-generated picture and have that printed as a poster.

Art was always expensive, and posters as an alternative to paintings existed way before AI. Same with copying all kinds of art.

The main difference seems to be that we can’t clearly pay royalties to anyone for AI artwork, because it’s not obvious exactly where it came from.

There was a YouTube channel dedicated to Warhammer lore narrated by an AI David Attenborough. It got taken down for infringing on his voice, but its replacement came up, starting out with a generic old man’s voice and over time gradually more Attenborough-like. When should the Attenborough estate start to get royalties? At 60% Attenborough? Or at 80% Attenborough?

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#114

Post by thankyoufriend »

sshine wrote: post #113
thankyoufriend wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I guess you don't read books/comics, watch TV/Movies/plays, play video games or listen to music? People aren't born skilled artists, that takes time and effort. Being able to prompt GenAI well just makes you a skilled prompter, not a skilled artist. Over time, we will lose a lot of skilled artists and that is something worth thinking more deeply about, instead of giving a callous hot take. Artists are trained to v…

My wife and I went for wall decoration. There’s an art gallery and a poster shop right next to each other. The price difference is a factor 100 for an average art piece. In the poster shop you can choose between a bunch of classics, or you can upload your own AI-generated picture and have that printed as a poster. Art was always expensive, and posters as an alternative to paintings existed way before AI. Same with co…

In my original comment I was asking people to follow me into an imaginary future where there are less artists. Artists reveal something about the world that speaks to us, which they do through critically breaking down and reforming what they see. I can't remember who said it, but they said when art speaks to you, it's a momentary bridge between the artist's soul and yours.

I'll answer your question, but my question for you is: why were you buying wall decorations in the first place? To me, it sounds like you were searching for a product category, and not specifically for art.

Regarding your example, if the AI is capable of imitating David Attenborough by including his name in the prompt, then it was probably trained on his data. If he didn't consent, then I might argue that is ethically wrong and, in my view, theft. If the channel was not monetized and done without his consent, I might argue that is just an ethical failing. In using his voice, the channel betrays the fact that it has value, otherwise they would continue to use the random old man voice.

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#115

Post by halJordan »

esalman wrote: post #110
data-ottawa wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a huge oversimplification. In the tattoo case, tattooing pikachu on a person does not harm Nintendo’s business, but copying another tattoo artist’s work or style directly takes their business. Tattoo art is an industry where your art style largely defines your career. I can see the argument LLMs are transformative, but when you set up specific evaluation of copying a company/artist and then advertise that you…

Very well put. It boggles my mind that some people cannot separate individual from corporations. As if their mind are not able to comprehend how corporations can cause harm at scale .

Certainly we need to "right-size" our outrage. But especially with the tattoo artist side, it skews into a sort of weird nimby-ism, where tattoo artists have claimed some mantle where the ip of a Nintendo which spent multiple salaries over six months perfecting a pokemon is totally worthless and trash, while the ip of some dime-a-dozen flash art someone banged out over a weekend is invaluable.

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#116

Post by sshine »

polotics wrote: post #100
sshine wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe the case is that you're welcome to paint a picture perfectly copying Studio Ghibli, but you cannot sell it. Technically, you can't, but there's no way to enforce copyright infringement on private work. You can paint a Studio Ghibli-style painting -- the style isn't protected. These rules assume that copying the style is labor intensive, and righteously rewards the worker. When an LLM can reproduce thousan…

I think we can put your last sentence in a more compact form: If your entire livelihood depends on your art, get a stronger business. or even better: if you make art, get a stronger business or maybe simply: stop making art

Or just: stop

That’s not really what I’m saying.

Large brand copyright holders gonna sue. It is part of their core business.

If you’re a musician, you gotta tour to make money. If you’re a painter, you need patrons.

There already were a ton of ways organised IP theft would make money on your creative force.

AI training seems different because it can gobble up anything out of order and somehow digest it into something valuable without human intervention.

The training is absurdly expensive, but considering how they capture the profit on the value created, and the training input owners won’t, will just mark the end of the open internet for non-FOSS normies.

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#117

Post by insane_dreamer »

mafriese wrote: post #5

I am still torn on this issue. On the one hand, it feels like a copyright violation when other people's works are used to train an ML model. On the other hand, it is not a copyright infringement if I paint a picture in the Studio Ghibli style myself. The question is whether removing a ‘skill requirement’ for replication is sufficient grounds to determine a violation.

The difference is that you’re not making money off your pictures (or else you'd probably need a licensing agreement), whereas the AI companies are making money off of the IP holders.

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#118

Post by insane_dreamer »

nrjames wrote: post #33

In the world of tattooing, it’s frowned upon for a tattoo artist to take another tattoo artist’s original work and replicate it without permission, yet it’s common practice to take well known IP (Pokémon, Studio Ghibli, etc) and tattoo that on a client. The ethical boundary seems to be between whether the source artwork was created by an individual vs. a corporation.

Technically the individual tattoo artist needs a license to reproduce the IP (unless the studio released the likeness into the public domain), but it's small potatoes and these IP holders know that the free promotion helps them infinitely more than whatever they'd get from trying to enforce IP licenses.

But the AI companies are making billions off of this (and a lot of other) IP, so it totally makes sense for the IP holders to care about copyright protection.

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#119

Post by neumann »

mafriese wrote: post #5

I am still torn on this issue. On the one hand, it feels like a copyright violation when other people's works are used to train an ML model. On the other hand, it is not a copyright infringement if I paint a picture in the Studio Ghibli style myself. The question is whether removing a ‘skill requirement’ for replication is sufficient grounds to determine a violation.

Scale and purpose is what you are missing.

If you paint a Studio Ghibli totoro on your cup, pillow, PC, T-shirt, nobody is going to care. If you do this a thousand times it obviously is an issue. And if you charge people to access you to do this, it is also obviously an issue.

Re: Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, Square Enix Demand OpenAI to Stop Using Their IP

#120

Post by pietz »

sshine wrote: post #90
signa11 wrote: post #2

to paraphrase: You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a television. You wouldn't steal a DVD. Downloading someone's content for AI training is stealing. Stealing is a crime. really, really happy that someone is calling out data-harvesting for what it really is.

You wouldn't download a car. Ironically, that whole anti-piracy campaign used a pirated font: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/you-wouldnt-steal-a-... The difference is: You're making copies of something: Scenario 1: I take your baguette. Your hand is empty. You starve. Scenario 2: I take your baguette recipe. You still have a baguette recipe. You continue to live. Scenario 3: I take your baguette recipe and p…

Thanks for sharing the font story! That made me quite a bit happier than it should have.
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